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Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

nytimes.com

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Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#351

Post by ninetyninenine »

mckn1ght wrote: post #183
ninetyninenine wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is one of those things that is easy to say precisely due to the impossibility of it ever actually becoming a real decision you have to make. It's true. But things like this should be easy to say right? Like we may not be able to act logically. But we should be able to think logically, communicate logically and show that we are aware of what is logical. My post got flagged meaning a lot of people can't separate…

I think things like that should be easy to say, if by that you mean censorship. Sure. But talk is cheap. And there are gradations of reality. It would maybe be easier for a 15-25 y.o. to kill a baby they don't know and whose parents/family they don't know, and maybe even easier if they don't speak their language or look like them. Of course, the baby wouldn't be the only one you'd have to kill, most likely. I submit…

>So, while I think you can say things like that, ie the ability and allowance, I think you should question whether you should.

You should because many choice in life are not strictly black and white. Saving a babies life versus introducing gene editing to humanity. If there was a baby where we knew he would grow up to slaughter millions it's absolutely worth talking about. In the age of AI and gene editing where things are influencing what it even means to be human, it is wise to stop and pause for a minute to ask the right question rather then charge forward with change that can't be taken back all because we wanted to save a baby.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#352

Post by concordDance »

morsecodist wrote: post #317
gr_norm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Effective Altruism", something I find myself aligned with but not to the extremes taken by others.

Effective Altruism is such an interesting title. Almost no one views their Altruism as ineffective. The differentiator is what makes their flavor of Altruism effective, but that's not in the title. It would be like calling the movement "real Altruism" or "good Altruism". A good name might be rational Altruism because in practice these people are from the rationalist movement and doing Altruism, or what they feel is A…

The vast majority of non-EA charity givers to not expend effort on trying to find the most dollar efficient charities (or indeed pushing for quantification at all), which makes their altruism ineffectual in a world with strong competition between charities (where the winners are inevitably those who spend the most on acquiring donations).

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#353

Post by concordDance »

bglazer wrote: post #231
tuna-piano wrote: post #224

If someone in the year 2050 was to pick out the most important news article from 2025, I won't be surprised if they choose this one. For those who don't understand this stuff - we are now capable of editing some of a body's DNA in ways that predictably change their attributes. The baby's liver now has different (and better) DNA than the rest of its body. We still are struggling in most cases with how to deliver the D…

The “How to make superbabies” article demonstrates a couple of fundamental misunderstandings about genetics that make me think the authors don’t know what they’re talking about at a basic level. Zero mention of linkage disequilibrium. Zero mention of epistasis. Unquestioned assumptions of linear genotype-phenotype relationships for IQ. Seriously, the projections in their graphs into “danger zone” made me laugh out lo…

Do you have some further reading where one can understand the basics of the subject?

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#355

Post by kubb »

GenshoTikamura wrote: post #153
throw7 wrote: post #63

Gattaca here we come!

One can not simply raise valid concerns about gene editing technologies in the hands of the entities that don't hesitate sending people en masse to kill and die and otherwise manifest their fascist cravings in the open, here on HN and walk away undownvoted

Science fiction pattern matching is a problem nobody talks about. People see something that vaguely resembles a movie that they saw and act like that movie is reality now.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#356

Post by stogot »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #310
gr_norm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Effective Altruism", something I find myself aligned with but not to the extremes taken by others.

Technically lesswrong is about rationalists not effective altruists, but you're right in a sense that it's the same breed. They think that the key to scientific thinking is to forego the moral limitations, not to study and learn. As soon as you're free from the shackles of tradition you become 100% rational and therefore 100% correct.

Except no one is 100% rational nor 100% correct

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#359

Post by efilife »

concordDance wrote: post #354
koala_man wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What was the question? The rampant flagging here is quite annoying.

My original comment said:

> But your child will die and that's a fact. Is it only ok for it to die after you?

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#360

Post by Sammi »

foreigner wrote: post #347
palisade wrote: post #322

Does this mean when they grow up, their own offspring will also have this defect and require a correction? And, if so, does this mean it is now introducing this defective gene into our gene pool? I know this is an issue with caesarean section. It is becoming more prevalent because those who require it are surviving, making it more likely to happen in their offspring.

We get half of our genes from each of our parents. So unless this person has the extremely unlikely misfortune of partnering with someone else with the same rare mutation, their offspring would only have a 50/50 chance of inheriting their copy of this gene. There are also medical procedures (PGD) to bring that chance to virtually 0%.

Also parents who are both carriers have a 25% chance of making a sick child, a 25% chance of making a non carrier and non sick child, and a 25%+25% chance of making non sick yet carrier child. So they already have a 50% chance of making children who'll survive and yet be carriers of the disease. I guess this will increase this to 75%. But you have to evaluate this in connection with the rapid increases in genetic treatment options, which decreases the issues.
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